Question

Specifically, it throws a NullPointerException if original is null. Yet the javadocs do not mention it.

I know, it says this constructor should not be necessary unless an explicit copy is needed, but I am writing copy constructors for some larger objects that contain Strings, and while it probably isn’t strictly necessary to make an explicit copy, since everything else is getting an explicit copy in this case, I’m willing to pay a small price in inefficiency.

But shouldn’t there be a throws in this javadoc?

Answer 1

From JavaTM 2 Platform Std. Ed. v1.4.2:

Unless otherwise noted, passing a null argument to a constructor or method in this class will cause a NullPointerException to be thrown.